Emotional Abuse | Books by Erica Cameron

10 Authors Discuss Asexuality, Immigration, and More on December’s YA Open Mic:

Erica Cameron, author of Deadly Sweet Lies

I am asexual. It’s a fact of my life now, but it’s one I didn’t discover until I was 29 and trying to recover from an emotionally abusive and manipulative marriage.

I grew up in a liberal, diverse city in South Florida and the available spectrum of sexual orientations was always pretty clear: gay, bisexual, or straight. I could be attracted to anyone of any gender, and that was okay—it was something I knew both in theory and from watching my childhood best friend try to figure out her own sexuality as we grew up.

No one ever mentioned that being attracted to no one was an acceptable option.

Parents, teachers, and even friends told me over the years not to look for too much external validation. Or, at least to avoid letting that validation impact my self-worth. Sometimes, though, something has to be verified, labeled, and categorized by someone who isn’t in my head for my experiences and emotions to feel real and acceptable. That is especially true when the word I was looking for to describe myself didn’t exist in my vocabulary. Not outside the context of the short section in my freshman biology class about the asexual reproduction of amoebas, anyway.

It’s why I vacillate between the urge to laugh and cry when someone questions the need for diversity in books. I was a voracious reader as a child. How different would my life have been if I’d known at 9 or 19 what I discovered at 29 about the sexual identity spectrum? I won’t ever know the answer to that question, but I will try my hardest to be the voice that tells teen readers what I never heard. What I would absolutely love is for my asexual spectrum characters to provide the “Oh my god, that sounds like me” moment for at least one person. Not going to lie; it’s kind of a life goal.

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I was incredibly excited/nervous/thrilled to receive a radio interview request about Sing Sweet Nightingale. My first one ever!

It was nerve-wrecking to call in and hope that I could come up with off-the-cuff answers that made sense, but I think that I succeeded. The conversation revolved around the theme of emotional abuse, something that is a key element in the book and very important to me personally. I am immensely thankful to KPRS 103.3 in Kansas City and DJ Julee Jonez for helping me spread awareness on this important issue.

On her website, Julee had this to say about it:

One in three adolescents in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence. What’s more alarming? Only 33% of teens who were in a violent relationship ever told anyone about the abuse. But would teens pick up a book about emotional abuse? Author Erica Cameron, who was in an emotionally abusive relationship, figured out a way to marry the theme with a creative read in her debut novel, “Sing Sweet Nightingale”, the first volume of The Dream War Saga, a four-book young adult series. Listen in as we chat about the read and the serious issue of emotional abuse.

If you didn’t get the chance to hear the interview live yesterday, you can still listen to the whole interview (it’s only about five minutes!) online for free here. If you are looking for additional information and resources about emotional abuse, check out my resources page for information on emotional abuse and gaslighting, an incredibly invasive and insidious abusive technique.